


Shadows on the Walls

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Childhood, Death, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-09
Updated: 2010-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 00:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jien worries that his brother is going crazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows on the Walls

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Ghosts"; time taken to write: 30 minutes.

_'If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts' – Counting Crows, "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"_

 

"I saw Dad last night."

Jien stopped almost in mid-swing and the blunt side of the axe head thumped against the small of his back, which ached all the way up and down. Only the slow trickle of sweat down his spine made him sure that the world hadn't stopped.  
"What?"

Gojyo tossed a stone, kicking his leg against the side of the stair, "I saw Dad."

Jien sat the axe down, took a deep breath and rubbed at his shoulder, "Gojyo, Dad is dead."

It hurt to say it – an ache in his chest like the time he had fallen from the tree along the riverbank, bruised his ribs and couldn't breathe right for a week. But it was the truth.

"I know," Gojyo's attention was focused somewhere far away as his fingers quested through the loose dirt for another stone to toss, "but he was here anyway."

Jien shook his head, picked up the axe again, and went back to chopping wood.

***

The house had been empty for over a year. No one thought to sell it; no one wanted to live there after what had happened. Jien knew the other kids in the village liked to say that it was haunted, liked to see who was brave enough to walk up and knock on the door. He set the bag of groceries down, took one step onto the over-grown lawn – the grass was up to his knees, alternately tickling and scratching – then stepped back and picked the groceries up again, bouncing anxiously from one foot to the other.

"I'm not going in," he told himself, "there's nothing in there. Nothing."

In the front window, the dust shadowed curtains shifted, as if an invisible hand had tried to brush them aside.

Jien dropped the groceries and ran.

***

"And then he said that I…"

Jien rolled over, pulling the pillow over his head, sucking air through the musty mattress, and wondered if it was possible for someone to go crazy when they were only four years old.

Every single night, Gojyo talked and talked until he fell asleep – talked to their father, talked to a ghost.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Jien hated how small and uncertain his voice sounded, hated how much he wanted to get out of bed and go see if there really was someone other than his brother in the room next door, hated how jealous he felt that it was Gojyo and not him.

It was ridiculous. Gojyo didn't even remember what their father looked like. Jien had the last picture of him hidden behind the loose panel at the back of his closet, and even he didn't take it out and look at it anymore because it did nothing but make him feel sick and lonely inside.

Finally he raised his hand, knocked twice on the wall, and after a moment, Gojyo knocked back.

"Go to sleep," Jien murmured, more to himself than anyone.

***

The key to the back door was still hidden under the big rock beneath the window of what had been Gojyo's nursery. Jien realized that he was probably the last person in the world that knew anything about the house – about the woman who lived there, the man who had loved her, and the baby they had made. It was all gone, reduced to memories and a story he didn't really feel right telling Gojyo because it just seemed like a tangled net of promises no one could keep.

The house smelled sour, dry, and Jien's feet kicked up clouds of dust. He stood in the kitchen, afraid to go into any of the other rooms, away from the meagre light of the grim-clouded windows.

"Dad?" the tears started falling the instant he opened his mouth, and when he called out again it was only a sob.

When he left, he locked the back door, took the long way home and threw the key into the river.

***

It was hot that night, sick-hot. Jien felt almost like he had a fever and his head wouldn't stop pounding as he listened Gojyo talking to no one on the other side of his bedroom wall.

When he tried to get up the sheets tangled around his legs and it seemed to take forever to kick them away. He went into Gojyo's room without knocking and sat at the foot of his bed, waited until his brother had stopped talking to the shadows on his walls before he asked, "Gojyo…is he really here?"

Gojyo looked at him, confused, "Yeah."

Jien nudged him aside and lay down next to him, their foreheads almost touching on the thin pillow. Gojyo's eyes were black in the darkness, like pools of spilled ink, "I can't see him Gojyo – I can't see him at all."

Gojyo lifted a tiny, sweat-damp hand and laid it over his brother's eyes, "Can you see him now?"

-End-


End file.
